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Mind, Vol. 106 . 423 . July 1997 Oxford University Press 1997

Varieties of Quotation

HERMAN CAPPELEN AND ERNIE LEPORE

There are at least four varieties of quotation, including pure, direct, indirectand mixed. A theory of quotation, we argue, should give a unified accountof these varieties of quotation. Mixed quotes such as Alice said that life isdifficult to understand, in which an utterance is directly and indirectlyquoted concurrently, is an often overlooked variety of quotation. We showthat the leading theories of pure, direct, and indirect quotation are unable toaccount for mixed quotation and therefore unable to provide a unified the-ory. In the second half of the paper we develop a unified theory of quotationbased on Davidsons demonstrative theory.

Language is the instrument it is because the same expres-sion, with semantic features (meaning) unchanged, canserve countless purposes. (Davidson 1968)

Suppose Alice utters (1). She can be properly quoted by any of (2)(4):

(1) Life is difficult to understand.

(2) Alice said Life is difficult to understand.

(3) Alice said that life is difficult to understand.


(2) quotes Alice by mentioning the words she uttered. This is direct

quo-tation. (3) quotes her, but could be true even if Alice never uttered any

word in (3). This is indirect

quotation. (4) quotes Alice by reporting what

she said, but attributes to her only an utterance of is difficult to under-

stand. Call this mixed

quotation.

1

If Alice utters (5), she uses quotation

not to report what another says, but simply to talk about linguistic expres-

sions. Call thispure

quotation.

1 The category of mixed quotation is more or less ignored in the literature. Thisis surprising. In the actual practice of reporting anothers speech, mixed quotationis, arguably, the most common form. Peruse any newspaper and one finds reportssimilar to these, from a recentNew York Times

article about testimony to a Con-gressional committee by Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan:

Greenspan said that some of last years decline in long-term interest rateswill have to be refunded. Passage of a program, by contrast, wouldbring rates down quite a bit further. He said the Fed would have beenirresponsible not to have raised interest rates in 1994 . Mr.Greenspan said he agreed with Labor Secretary R. B. Reich on quite alot of things. Their accord on this issue, he said, has proved quite asurprise to both of us.


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430 Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore

(5) Life is difficult to understand is a sentence.

1. Interactions among varieties of quotation

2

These varieties of quotation interact in interesting and largely overlooked

ways. Consider first the following exchange:

A: Alice said that life is difficult to understand.

B: She did not

; she said that death is difficult to understand.

A and B disagree. One uses mixed quotation, the other indirect quotation.That A and B disagree indicates that mixed and indirect quotation func-

tion in overlapping ways. We take this as evidence for:

C1 Mixed and indirect quotation should receive overlapping seman-tic treatments.

C1 gains additional support from the fact that joint mixed and indirect

quotations admit of certain sorts of conjunction reduction. (6) is true only

if (7) is:

(6) Alice said that life stinks and she said that life is difficult to un-derstand.

(7) Alice said that life both stinks and is difficult to understand.

Consider next the dispute between A and C:

A: Alice said that life is difficult to understand.

C: No! She said Life is not difficult to understand.

That C disagrees with A shows that direct and mixed quotation must admit

overlapping accounts, lending support to:

There are many reasons for mixed quoting another. Here is by no means an ex-haustive list of typical reasons for preferring mixed over straight direct or indirectquotation: (i) The reported utterance is too long to be directly quoted, but the re-

porter wants to insure accuracy in certain key passages (as in theNew York Times

passage). (ii) Certain passages in the original utterance were particularly well-put(as in: Quine says that quotation has a certain anomalous feature). (iii) The re-porter wants to distance herself from the use of certain words in the original utter-ance (as in: Alice says philosophy stinks or Bill says that it aint so).

2 Scare quotes are perhaps another variety of quotation and therefore are cer-tainly worth discussing, but a full treatment of them, we believe, would requiretoo much space. However, it is worth pointing out that there are important simi-larities between mixed quotes and scare quotes. In particular, reasons for scarequoting are often the same as reasons for mixed quoting.


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Varieties of Quotation 431

C2 Direct and mixed quotation should receive overlapping semantictreatments.

3

C could disagree with someone who uttered (3) only on the (not uninno-

cent, at least in this context) assumption that C is directly quoting

English,

4

and so:

C3 Direct and indirect quotation should receive distinct semantictreatments.

Finally, consider the inference from the direct quote (2) to the pure quote

(8); and similarly from the mixed quote (4) to the pure quote (9):


(8) A token of Life is difficult to understand was uttered.(4) Alice said that life is difficult to understand.

(9) A token of is difficult to understand was uttered.

A natural explanation for these inferences is:

C4 Quotation

5

in pure, direct, and mixed quotation should receiveoverlapping semantic treatments.

Lastly, C1C4 are evidenced further by considerations about understand-

ing pure, direct, mixed, and indirect quotation. Quotes in (2) function as

they do in (5). All one need learn to extend an understanding of pure quo-

tation to direct quotation is an understanding of the verb say, as it func-

tions in contexts such as (2). Furthermore, understanding (2) and how

indirect quotation, as in (3), functions suffices for understanding (4). So,it would seem that all thats needed to understand mixed quotation is a

prior understanding of pure, direct, and indirect quotation.

Surprisingly, though much is in print on the semantics of indirect quo-

tation, some on the semantics of pure and direct quotation, and even a lit-

tle on the semantics of mixed quotation, no one, as far as we know, has

3 An anonymous referee for this journal has pointed out to us that there is animportant difference between mixed and direct quotation, at least in English, in asmuch as absence of agreement in inflection is acceptable in direct but not

in mixedquotation. This doesnt show that mixed and direct quotation cannot receive over-lapping semantic treatments. It would show this only if it is a necessary conditionon direct quotation that it doesnt agree in inflection with the rest of the sentence.Whats clear is that it is a necessary condition on mixed, but not on direct, quota-

tion that it agree in inflection with the rest of the sentence. What follows from thisis that if one mixed quotes someone, she must ensure that the quote agrees in in-flection with the rest of the sentence.

4 Here we agree with Partee (1973, p. 118). Nothing in Cs report indicates thatshe is speaking English and the grammaticality of her report would not be affectedwere we to substitute, say, a German sentence for the quoted words.

5 There are various devices for indicating quotation in written English: invertedcommas, some uses of italicized, bold or underlined print; other languages differ.There are no particular conventions for spoken quotes except what we can cullfrom context.


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ever tried to develop an account that satisfies constraints C1C4. That is

our chief aim in this paper. The assorted data thus far adduced provide

strong support for the desirability of an account satisfying C1C4 and

show at least that any semantics not satisfying C1C4 leaves much unex-

plained.

6

We will offer a semantics for indirect, pure, direct, and mixed quota-

tion, erected upon Davidsons accounts for indirect and pure quotation

(Davidson 1968, 1979). We begin by raising doubts about whether leading

semantic accounts for indirect quotation and for pure (and direct) quota-

tion can accommodate mixed cases in any non-ad hoc manner. Since no

author attempts to satisfy C1C4, our discussion will proceed by first

showing briskly that the influential views on the semantics of indirectquotation cannot easily be extended or refined to accommodate mixed

quotation and then equally briskly showing that the leading accounts of

pure (and direct) quotation cannot either.

2. The semantics of indirect quotation

Most accounts of the semantics of propositional attitude reports share fea-

tures (A) and (B):

(A) Propositional attitude reports assert that a relation obtains be-

tween an agent and a proposition (or a proposition-like content);and

(B) A propositional attitude report

A

V

ed thatp

(for some proposi-tional attitude verb V

) is true only if the proposition (or proposi-tion-like content) expressed by the complement clausep

matchesthe proposition (or proposition-like content) of the agents atti-tude.

Restricted to indirect speech, (A)(B) require that (3) is true iff Alice

uttered something that matches the propositional content of its comple-

ment clause. Theories incorporating (A)(B) differ on what matches

means and on what exactly propositions or proposition-like contents are.

Mixed cases, we believe, show that any theory incorporating (A)(B) is

inadequate. We shall illustrate the problem by discussing recent influen-tial theories in which (A)(B) are central components.

According to Soames, (3) is true iff Alice assertively uttered a sentence

S in an associated context C such that for some S

that can be readily

6 Here we strongly disagree with Partee (1973), who both expresses doubtabout whether quotation is part of natural language (p. 410) and explicitly saysthat what we are calling pure and mixed quotation should be treated separatelyfrom direct quotation (p. 411).


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inferred from S, the content of S

in C is the same as the content of (1) in

the context of the report (1989, p. 411). If Soamess account is extended

innocently to mixed quotation, then an utterance of (4) is a true report of

Alices utterance u

, say, of (1) iff Life is difficult to understand

expresses the same proposition as (an utterance of) a sentence that can be

readily inferred from (1). But which proposition could this be? Assuming

quotation marks are functioning normally here (i.e., functioning as a sin-

gular noun phrase referring to an expression-type), it is not obvious that

Life is difficult to understand expresses any proposition at all.

(Indeed, its not even clear whether it is well-formed in English.) But even

if it expresses a proposition, how could it express anything readily infer-

able from (1)? After all, arent (T1) and (T2) obvious truths about (4) and

u

?

(T1) Alice was talking about life; she was not talking about words. Inno sense did she express a proposition that was about linguisticentities.

(T2) The complement clause of (4) contains quotation marks and istherefore, in some sense, about words.

Hence, if (4) were merely an example of indirect quotation, then we could

indirectly quote another without using a complement clause matching the

content of the reported utterance, contrary to Soamess account.

Can the notion of readily inferable

rescue (our extension of) Soamess

account? He says little about what is required for one sentence to be

readily inferable from another. His only example is an inference of a con-

junct from a conjunction (1989, p. 411). But is there any sense to the idea

of readily inferring from (1) a sentence identical in content with life is

difficult to understand? First, as just noted, life is difficult to under-

stand does not seem to express a proposition. Hence, what could be

inferable from it? Also, even if there is a sense in which an utterance of

life is difficult to understand says something, Soamess account can be

rescued only if a sentence about words can be readily inferable from a sen-

tence not

about words. How this might be is a mystery for us.

For another illustration of the challenge mixed quotation poses for stan-

dard accounts of the semantics of indirect speech (i.e., accounts respect-

ing (A)(B)), consider accounts according to which propositional attitude

reports relate an agent to an Interpreted Logical Form (ILF).

7

The basic

idea is that propositional attitude reports express relations between agents

and annotated constituency graphs or phrase markers whose nodes pair

terminal and nonterminal symbols with a semantic value (Larson and

Ludlow, 1993, p. 305). An ILF is a logical form in the sense of Chomsky

7 Proponents include Higginbotham (1986), Segal (1989), Larson and Ludlow(1993), and Larson and Segal (1995).


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(1981) augmented by semantic values at each node in the phrase marker.

So, an ILF effectively incorporates three types of information: the seman-

tic content of an utterance (the proposition expressed), the logical struc-

ture of that semantic information, and the lexical means through which

that semantic content is passed along. ILF theorists hope to appropriate

various successes of diverse traditions in blocking unwanted inferences

between propositional attitude reports. Adapting an example from Larson

and Segal (1995, pp. 43840), Peter said that Lori met Cary Grant is

true just in case Peter said

S:[t]

NP:[Lori] VP:[Lori]

N:[Lori] V:[] NP:[Cary Grant]

N:[Cary Grant]

Lori:[Lori] met:[] Cary Grant:[Cary Grant]

where semantic values appear in the square brackets to the right of each

node.

No ILF theorist discusses mixed, pure, or direct quotation. One thing

is clear, however: if an ILF theory is to treat quotation innocently, then,inter alia, quotes must function in the same way and have the same

semantic value whatever linguistic context they occur in. (Larson and

Segal explicitly endorse semantic innocence (1995, pp. 4367); so do

Larson and Ludlow (1993, p. 332).) So, for mixed cases, e.g., (4),

expressions quoted must be included as semantic values in the ILF of the

complement clause (because the semantic value of a quotation is the

quoted expression) and it must contain the quotation itself as a lexical

element; e.g., there must be a node in which is occurs as a lexical

item and the semantic value of is, whatever that may be, occurs as

well. On this view, (4) claims Alice stands in the saying-relation to such

an ILF. However, to the extent that it is clear what it is to stand in the

saying-relation to an ILF, Alice does not bear this relation to any ILF asdescribed above.

ILF theorists disagree among themselves about whether standing in

the saying-relation to an ILF is to any extent pragmatically determined.

If it were, then we could exploit this feature of their theory to reply to a

number of objections (e.g., how it is that Caesar can stand in the say-

ing-relation to an ILF containing English words; how it is that Cary

Grant and Archie Leach can be (sometimes) exchanged without


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reversing truth-value in indirect speech; how it is that two speakers can

samesay each other even though their respective words have distinct ref-

erences).

8

Though we endorse appeals to pragmatic considerations in an

effort to characterize our practice of indirect quotation (and other propo-

sitional attitude attributional practices), such appeals cannot solve the

problem posed by mixed quotation. It is not a pragmatic question

whether a mixed report requires the reported speaker to stand in the say-

ing-relation to an entity containing lexical elements as semantic values.

Typically, a mixed quoted speaker said nothing about words and it is a

straightforward semantic fact that he did not. Any theory that does not

respect this fact, or tries to dodge it by deporting it to pragmatics, is

inadequate.In broad outline, a number of theories satisfying (A)(B) differ from

Soamess in as much as they, so to speak, add elements to the proposition

expressed by the complement clause in order to fine-grain a report (or

fine-grain it in what they take to be the right way), and then say that the

report is true iff the reported speaker stands in the saying-relation to this

new entity. In addition to ILF theorists, proponents of such views include

Crimmins and Perry (1989), Crimmins (1992), and Richard (1990).

According to all such theories, a propositional attitude report is true just

in case an agent stands in a certain relation, e.g., the saying-relation, to the

content of the complement clause. Each adds new componentsfor

example, ILFs, notions, or lexical elementsto the proposition (or some

proposition-like entity) expressed. By letting objects of the attitudes bepropositions (or something proposition-like) expressed plus something, it

is still a requirement that the speaker, or believer, or stands in the rele-

vant relation to the entity expressed.

Whatever the merits of these maneuvers, with respect to mixed cases

they establish no advance over Soamess less baroque version. The con-

tent expressed by the complement clause of a mixed case is about words.

The person reported by, say, (4), did not utter anything about words. So,

any theory requiring for the truth of an indirect quotation that the reported

speaker stand in the saying-relation to the proposition expressed by the

complement clause cannot accommodate mixed cases.

8 See Higginbotham (1986), Segal (1989), Ludlow and Larson (1993, pp. 33542), Larson and Segal (1995, ch. 11) for pros and cons of this debate.


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Mixed quotes like (11) are not un

common. Often we hear others using

unknown words (i.e., a word not part of our vocabulary). An utterer of (11)

might have mixed quoted Nicolas utterance of Alice is a philtosopher

because he is uncertain about what philtosopher means. He might

assume that Nicolas vocabulary is larger than his and mixed quotes her to

indicate that this is a word unknown to him. Alternatively, he might be

convinced that Nicola is linguistically incompetent and wants to make this

transparent without himself committing what he thinks is Nicolas mis-

take. On either scenario, mixed quotation is used to report what someone

said when part of what was said is unintelligible to the reporter himself.

12

It should be obvious that an account of mixed quotation along the lines

of (10) cannot be extended to (11). A natural extension would be (12):*(12) Nicola said that Alice is a philtosopher and she said it using, in

part, philtosopher.

But in uttering the first conjunct of (12), a normal English speaker fails to

report anything at all. Since a speaker can make a correct report by utter-

ing (11), the account adumbrated by (10) fails as an account of mixed quo-

tation.

We cannot prove that the leading accounts of the semantics of indirect

quotation cannot be extended to account for mixed quotation, but if C1

C4 are acceptable constraints, these accounts face a so far unmet chal-

lenge.

4. The semantics of pure quotation

The most influential accounts of pure quotation also fail to extend to the

mixed cases. The two prominent accounts of quotation are the proper

name account and the description account; both preclude satisfying C1

C4.

According to the proper-name account (e.g., Quine 1961, p. 140 and

Tarski 1956, p. 159), quotations are unstructured proper names of the

quoted expressions. There is no systematic correlation between what

occurs inside the quotation marks and the semantic value (i.e., the refer-ent) of the entire quotation. Applying the proper name account to (4),

unfortunately, results in ungrammaticality. Since quotations are just

names, (4), on this account, semantically (and syntactically) parallels

(13):

13

12 This is closely related to the use of mixed quotation to distance oneself fromobjectionable vocabulary.

13

For an account along these lines, see Platts (1979, pp. 10910) .


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*(13) Alice said that life Manhattan.

According to the description account (e.g., Quine 1960, p. 202; Tarski

1956, p. 160; Geach 1957, p. 79, and 1970), there is a set of basic units in

the language (words, according to Geach; letters, according to Quine). At

this basic level, we retain the proper name account, e.g., according to

Quine, a is a name of one letter, b a name of another, etc. Complex

quotations, i.e., quotations with more than one basic unit, are understood

as descriptions of concatenations of the basic units. So, (4) is construed as

(14):


*(14) Alice said that life i-s- -d-i-f-f-i-c d,

where - is a sign for concatenation. (14) is ungrammatical. Since,

according to the description account, when quotes surround basic units,

say, a, b, etc., the result is a name of the expression, (14) represents

the structure of (4) as analogous to Alice said that life Manhattan-Brook-

lyn-Bronx-Queens- , which it clearly is not.

So, prima facie, one general lesson from our brief discussion of these

two accounts is that any account of quotation according to which the

semantic function of word-tokens inside quotation marks is to refer to

word-types (or some other type of linguistic entity) fails to assign correct

truth-conditions to (4).

In summary, our criticisms of accounts of indirect, direct, and pure quo-

tation show that in order to account for mixed cases an account must dotwo things: it must account for how the complement clause of, e.g., (4) can

be employed to effect simultaneously a report that Alice uttered the words

is difficult to understand and that Alice said life is difficult to under-

stand. We turn to proposals for how to execute these.

5. Davidsons account of pure quotation

The main focus of Davidsons paper Quotation is pure quotation.

Davidson construes (5) as (15):

(5) Life is difficult to understand is a sentence.

(15) Life is difficult to understand. The expression of which this is atoken is a sentence.

Since Davidson takes expressions to be shapes or patterns (1979, p. 85),

(15) is equivalent to (16):

(16) Life is difficult to understand. The shape of which this is a tokenis a sentence,


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where an utterance of the second sentence is accompanied by a demon-

stration of an utterance of the first. According to Davidson:

quotation marks help refer to a shape by pointing out some-thing that has it The singular term is the quotation marks,which may be read the expression a token of which is here.(1979, p. 90)

On his view, quotes are definite descriptions containing demonstratives.

The demonstrative picks out the token within the quotation marks and the

definite description denotes an expression, i.e., a shape or a pattern,

instantiated by the demonstrated token.

Extending Davidsons idea to direct quotation, (2) would be semanti-

cally construed as (17):(2) Alice said Life is difficult to understand.

(17) Alice said (produced) a token of the pattern instantiated by that.Life is difficult to understand,

where an utterance of the first sentence is accompanied by a demonstra-

tion of an utterance of the second.

14

This unified demonstrative account of pure and direct quotation incor-

porates four attractive features:

(i) It explains why learning to quote is learning a practice with end-less but non-iterable application.

Understanding quotation is understanding the pattern instantiated by

that. There is no mystery about how we acquire this capacity, nor abouthow to account for it in a finitely axiomatic semantic theory. Obviously,

there is no upper bound on the length of expressions that can be quoted.

However, it does not follow, on the demonstrative account, that quotation

is a semanticallyproductive

device. Every pure quotation ascribing a met-

alinguistic feature

to a quoted expression

asserts the same thing: that

the demonstrated object (i.e.,

) is

. However, it does follow, on the

demonstrative account, that quotation is not, contrary to a common view,

genuinely iterative. Quoted expressions are exhibited

so that speakers can

talk about the patterns (according to Davidson) they instantiate. The

14 Washington (1992) criticizes what he takes to be Davidsons account of di-rect quotation. He writes:

According to [Davidson], a direct quotation of the form in (a) should be ex-panded as (b):

(a)

X

said

p

.

(b)

X

said, using words of which this is a token, that p

.

Washington misreads Davidson. Davidson never renders (a) as (b). (a) contains

direct

quotation and Davidson does not even discuss direct quotation in his paper.Washington references page 92 of Davidsons article and on that page Davidsonsketches an account of what weve been calling mixed quotation. If anything, (b)is Davidsons account of mixed quotation.


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semantic properties of the tokens are not

in active use; they are semanti-

cally inert (see (ii) below). So, quotation marks within quotation marks

are semantically inert. This is why (18) makes sense:

(18) oswerk is not a quoted expression in Romanian.

It would be a serious error to re-apply Davidsons account of pure quota-

tion to the referenced token in (18), resulting in nonsense like:

*(19) oswerk. The shape of which this is a token. The shape of whichthis is a token is not a quoted expression in Rumanian.

The displayed token in (19), all that succeeds the first colon, is not at all

whats quoted in (18).

(ii) It does this while preserving semantic innocence

.

A semantic account T for a language L is semantically innocent

just in

case what an expression of L means according to T does not vary system-

atically according to context (see Davidson 1968, p. 106, 1975, p. 166).

Semantic innocence is preserved at two levels. First, the account does not

assume words take on new semantic values when quoted. Secondly, it

makes the device of quotation unambiguous; quotes in pure quotation are

treated semantically in exactly the same way as quotes in direct quotation,

thus respecting C4.

Semantic innocence so construed, however, is compatible with there

being contexts in which what an expression means is not in active use

. So,

even though the United States denotes the United States, it is semanti-cally inert in (20):

(20) the United States is a linguistic expression.

(iii) It explains why quotational contexts are opaque

.

Sentences containing demonstratives need not preserve their truth value

when different objects are demonstrated. If you substitute a word-token of

one type for another of a different type as the demonstrated object, differ-

ent objects are demonstrated and thus the truth-value of the original (utter-

ance of that) sentence may change (see conclusion below).

(iv) It explains why quantifying into

quotes in natural language pro-duces absurd results.

y

(boxey is a word) cannot be inferred from boxer is a word norcan

x

(

x

is a word). The account explains why these inferences fail;

since it makes no sense to quantify into a demonstrated object, it makes

no sense to quantify into quotes on this account.

15

15 We are not claiming its illegitimate to introduce a quotation-like device intoEnglish that allows quantification in. The point is rather that ordinary quotation,which we are discussing, doesnt allow such quantification. Here we agree withQuine (1961) and Davidson (1979).


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Attractive as (i)(iv) are, the account requires an important modifica-

tion. Consider Alices spoken utterance of (1). (2) directly reports Alice.

According to our modest extension of Davidsons account, (2) is con-

strued as (17). But Alice did no such thing. Whatever sounds Alice said

(produced) do not instantiate the pattern demonstrated by an utterance of

(17) in any obvious sense.

This objection is by no means fatal. After all, Davidson only says we

may take [an expression] to be an abstract shape (1979, p. 85). His theory

is compatible with expressions being something else. We need only find

something that can be instantiated by things radically differently shaped.

In other words, one response is to identify an appropriate object to serve

as the expression instantiated by the demonstrated token. This object mustbe such that written tokens, spoken tokens, Braille tokens, Semaphore

tokens, finger language tokens, and any other way in which words can be

produced, can be instantiated by it. Moreover, since we can, and con-

stantly do, develop new ways of producing words (we develop new sign

systems for blind people, for computer languages, etc.), this entity must

be instantiable by tokens not yet conceived.

Though we doubt such entities exist, they might, and if they do, they

might ultimately play a role in the metaphysics of language. But even if

they do, it is by no means clear that this issue should be settled by the

semantics of quotation. A semantics should avoid countenancing (quanti-

fication over) dubious metaphysical entities in the metalanguage unless

absolutely necessary. Happily, Davidsons account can be modified so asnot to quantify over expressions. It could equally well treat quotes as

quantifying over tokens that stand in a certain relation, call it the same-

tokening

relation, to the demonstrated token. This suggests construing (5)

as (21):

(21)

x

(ST(

x

, that)

Sx). Life is difficult to understand,

where an utterance of the first sentence demonstrates the exhibited token

of (1), ST means same-tokens

, and S means is a sentence (token)

.

Rather than quotes demonstrating a token and denoting some abstract

object it instantiates, they are expressions that quantify over tokens that

stand in a same-tokening relation to the demonstrated token. Whether two

entities stand in a same-tokening relation to each other is not settled by thesemantics. It might involve appeal to an abstract object, but, then again, it

might not.

The demonstrative account of pure quotation can be extended naturally

to direct quotation. (2) would be construed as (22) (alternatively, as (23)):


(22)

u

(Says(

a

, u

) &

y

(ST(

y

, these) ST(u,y))). Life is difficult tounderstand.


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(23) u(Says(a, u) & ST(u, these)). Life is difficult to understand.16

Says means says. So, Alice said a token that same-tokens the demon-

strated object.

It goes beyond the scope of this paper to elaborate on and fully defend

the view that quotes are quantified expressions.17 One obvious advantage

of this view is that it construes sentences containing quotes as being about

concrete particulars and not about objects existing outside space and time.

These concrete particulars can be sounds, ink marks, tokens in a language

of thought or what have you. The semantics leaves this open. Glancing

forward, just as Davidsons semantics isnt committed to the existence of

propositions as what determines the samesaying relationship, a semantics

need not be committed to abstract entities, expression-types, as whatdetermines the same-tokening relationship.

6. Davidsons account of indirect quotation

In On Saying That, Davidson (1968) paraphrases (3) as (24):

(24) Life is difficult to understand. Alice said that,

where that is accompanied by a demonstration of the first utterance and

that second utterance is true just in case Alice said something that same-

says the demonstrated utterance. We prefer to ignore Davidsons distinc-

tion between analysis and logical form and represent (3) as (25):18

(25) u(Says(u, a) & SS(u, that)). Life is difficult to understand,

where an utterance of the first sentence demonstrates an utterance of the

latter sentence, Says still means says, and SS means samesays.

We cannot emphasize enough that we do not intend here to engage in

an evaluation of Davidsons (or our version of his) account of indirect

quotation.19 Our aim, instead, is to show how the accounts of direct and

indirect quotation can be exploited and developed so as (at least) to satisfy

C1C4. Notice straight away that C3 is satisfied, i.e., indirect quotation is

treated differently from direct quotation. The former invokes same-token-

ing; whereas the latter invokes samesaying.20

16 Given certain not implausible assumptions about ST, (22) and (23) areequivalent since: ST(u, these) y(ST(y, these) ST(u,y)).

17 For an elaboration of this view, see Cappelen (1997).18 See Lepore and Loewer (1989, 1990).19 See Higginbotham (1986), Lepore and Loewer (1989, 1990), Segal (1989).20 Seymour (1994) misconstrues Davidson on this point. According to him,

Davidsons account of indirect speech is a notational variant of a sentential ac-count of indirect speech coupled with Davidsons account of pure quotation.


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7. Mixed quotation

Earlier we argued that the available semantic accounts of pure (and direct)

and indirect quotation do not integrate mixed quotation and therefore fail

to satisfy C1C4. The semantic theories of indirect speech canvassed ear-

lier treat the complement clause as a semantic unit referring to (or in some

other way determining) a proposition (or something proposition-like).

The semantic theories of quotation canvassed earlier treat pure quotes as

singular terms referring to abstract objects, expression types. For anyone

receptive to either of these ideas mixed cases remain enigmatic. From

these points of view mixed quoting seems to involve two entirely different

activities taking place at the same time in the same place. How could the

complement clause of (4) both determine a proposition not about words,

and, concomitantly, refer to words Alice used?

Merging the two demonstrative accounts supplies an ingenious reply.

Since the complement clause is in effect semantically excised from (4)

and merely demonstrated, we can ascribe different properties to it. With

one utterance we can say both that the demonstrated token samesays one

of Alices utterances and say that it (or parts of it) same-tokens that utter-

ance. Our suggestion, then, is to construe (4) as (26):21

(26) u(Says(a, u) & SS(u, that) & ST(u, these)). Life is difficult tounderstand,

This is a mistake; we can truly indirectly report, and hence, samesay, Alices ut-terance of Im here now, in some contexts, by saying Alice said that she wasthere then. Here we samesay Alice without same-tokening her. The other wayaround, one may same-token her utterance of Im here now without samesayingit, by saying Im here now. See, also, Baldwin (1982, p. 273).

21 An anonymous referee for this journal has suggested to us that there are twoways to relate the logical form of mixed quotation to surface structure. One optionis to say that mixed quotation involves a use of the same word says in two dif-ferent senses at the same time. We cannot endorse this reading since our argumentthat conjoined direct and indirect quotations admit of legitimate conjunction re-ductions renders says unambiguous. The other option is to suppose that sayscorresponds to our predicate Says in logico-semantic form and that there is an

implicit gap in the sentences for either of the two predicates SS and ST, onlyone of which need be filled, but both of which can be. We recommend a third al-ternative: an ordered pair satisfies the two-place predicate Says just incase asays b. What in the syntax determines whether ST or SS or both are inlogico-semantic form is this: if says takes a complement clause as its grammat-ical object, SS is in play; if says instead takes a quoted noun phrase as itsgrammatical object ST is in play; with genuine cases of mixed quotation bothpredicates are in play. This has an odd consequence, namely, in mixed quotationthe transitive says takes two distinct direct objects. Rob Stainton pointed outthis peculiarity for us.


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where an utterance of the first demonstrative demonstrates an entire utter-

ance of (1) and an utterance of the second demonstrative demonstrates

(only) the (sub)utterance of difficult to understand.22 According to the

unified account, mixed cases like (4) can be utilized both to attribute the

same-tokening relationship between one of Alices utterances and the

demonstrated (sub)utterance and to attribute a samesaying relationship

between Alices utterance and the demonstrated utterance.23

There are cases where quotes in the complement clause do not indicate

mixed quoting. If Alice asserts (5), we can report her with (27). On our

account this is unproblematic. (27) is construed as (28):

(27) Alice said that life is difficult to understand is a sentence.

(28) u(Says(a, u) & SS(u, that)). Life is difficult to understand is asentence.

In some cases the syntax of an indirect report does not reveal whether the

report is mixed or indirect. (29) could report what Alice said about the

name Butcher Bob (she might have uttered Butcher Bob is ugly)

and therefore be construed as indirect quotation, i.e., as (30); or it could

be a mixed report of what Alice said about Butcher Bob, but where the

reporter may want to distance himself from the use of the name Butcher

Bob, and therefore, he employs a mixed case, i.e., as in (31):

(29) Alice said that Butcher Bob is ugly.

(30) u(Says(a, u) & SS(u, that)). Butcher Bob is ugly.

(31) u(Says(a, u) & SS(u, that) & ST(u, these)). Butcher Bob is ugly.In (31), the first demonstrative demonstrates an entire token of Butcher

Bob is ugly and the second demonstrates only the token of Butcher

Bob.

Based on surface syntax alone, whether an utterance of (29) will be

construed as (30) or (31) depends upon what intentions an interpreter

ascribes to the utterer. This is no different from ordinary cases of ambigu-

ity. We cannot determine simply on the basis of a written or spoken utter-

22 Actually, there might be reasons for complicating this logical form by atleast adding another quantifier ranging over a distinct (sub)utterance; and also,perhaps, adding another predicate in logical form indicating that whatever utter-ance this second quantifier ranges over must be a part of whatever utterance the

first quantifier ranges over. We will ignore these technical niceties here.23 We agree with Davidson that the device of pointing can be used on what-ever is in range of the pointer, and there is no reason why an inscription in activeuse cant be ostended in the process of mentioning an expression [Some to-kens] do double duty, once as meaningful cogs in the machine of the sentence,once as semantically neutral objects with a useful form (1979, p. 91).

Notice that is difficult to understand is mentioned in (26) if mention is de-fined as: an expression e is mentioned in an utterance ujust in case the token of eoccurring in uis produced in order to be demonstrated so as to talk about tokensthat same-token it.


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ance of an ambiguous sentence what the speaker intended. What is special

about mixed cases is that they can be used to attribute both the same-

tokening and the samesaying relation between the same two utterances.

Though special, theres nothing problematic here. In fact, given that it is

a very efficient way of performing a certain kind of speech act, it is exactly

what we should expect.24

In criticizing other accounts, we appealed to reports such as (11):

(11) Nicola said that Alice is a philtosopher.

Our account treats (11) as (32):

(32) u(Says(n, u) & SS(u, that) & ST(u, these)). Alice is a philtoso-

pher,where that is accompanied by a demonstration of the token of Alice is

a philtosopher and these by a demonstration of the token of philtoso-

pher.

Is our account better positioned to account for the truth of (11) than the

account (i.e., (12)) we criticized earlier? After all, an utterance tof (11),

construed as (32), is true only if Nicolas utterance samesays ts sub-utter-

ance of Alice is a philtosopher. But an utterance of Alice is a philtoso-

pher by a normal English speaker cant express anything since

philtosopher is not English; but, then, how can an utterance that fails to

express anything samesay anything?

Anyone who has this concern has not understood how the extension of

the samesay relation is determined. Its the actual practice of making indi-

rect reports of others that fixes that extension. There are no a priori con-

straints on what can samesay what. If a certain sort of report is an

24 In conversation, Fodor argued that the ungrammaticality of sentences like(II) count against our proposal for mixed cases.

*(II) Alice said that lobsters fight with their tail.

Fodor asks why (II) shouldnt be grammatical according to our proposal? Our re-ply is two-fold. First, we are not convinced by the alleged data. Something isstrange about (II), but consider the name Barney Gag. Some A, a homophobewho dislikes Barney Gag, says, Barney Fag is stupid. In reportingA, we mighttry:Asaid that Barney Fag is stupid. This mixed quote is not obviously nonsen-sical. However, if Fodor is right that (II) is more than just unusual, an interestingquestion is why it is a constraint on our practice of mixed quotation that we cannot

quote sub-morphemic units. The answer might be that (II) doesnt display whichword Alice used. Nothing in (II) indicates that she used the word lobster. So,(II) cannot be the claim that she used the letter l in writing down lobster. Forall we know, she might have spoken Romanian. If she was speaking Romanian, itwould be, at least, utterly confusing to say that she used the letter l. Where? Inwhich word? Just somewhere in her sentence? We dont even know if she wroteit; she could have been speaking. If mixed quotation doesnt permit quoting sub-morphemic units, the resulting confusion might explain the restriction. Imposingsuch a constraint is compatible with our account; indeed, its hard to imagine anexplanation of this (alleged) restriction that is incompatible with it.


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important part of that practice, then its philosophically prejudicial to bar

it as illegitimate. Mixed quotes similar to (11) form an important subpart

of our practice of indirect reporting. We often encounter speakers whose

utterances partly make sense to us and partly dont; we need a reporting

device to indicate which part made sense and which was odd. Mixed quo-

tation serves exactly that function. Consider common-place cases like

(33)(37):

(33) Max said that Alice is an oenophile, but Im not sure what thatmeans.

(34) Max said that Alice is an oenophile, but I think that what hemeans by oenophile is not what we mean by it.

(35) Max said that Alice is an oenophile, but I dont think he knowswhat that means.

(36) Max said that Alice is an oenophile, but I dont think thats aword.

(37) Max said that Alice is an oenophile, but that isnt a word.

In (33), the reporter is uncertain about the meaning of an expression, but

leaves open the possibility that this is due to his own linguistic ignorance;

whereas the difference between (34) and (37) concerns the speakers

degree of certainty about oenophiles place or non-place in the lexicon.

(33)(37) communicate efficiently that a certain part of Maxs utter-

ance made sense, but that one specific part, his use of oenophile, was

odd. These five cases begin to indicate the wide variety of reasons we have

for finding, and pointing out that, the use of certain expressions is odd.

(36)(37) are, perhaps, closer to (11). Notice how we can extend (11) to

(11):

(11) Nicola said that Alice is a philtosopher, but I dont think thatsa word, but that isnt a word, etc.

What all these examples show is that sincemixed quotes like (11) are an

important part of our indirect reporting practice and sincethe extension of

the samesay relation is determined by our actual practice of indirect

reporting, there can be no further question whether the demonstrated sub-

utterance of an utterance of (32) can samesay an utterance of Nicolas.

Therefore, any account of indirect speech that ignores these sorts of cases

is incomplete.What about the question howit is possible for a demonstrated utterance

of Alice is a philtosopher to samesay Nicolas utterance? If this question

is asking how samesaying can have this sort of extension, we dont know

how to answer it. It has the extension it has and we can understand why

that is useful and important in our linguistic practice. Still, one might

wonder how, assuming that (11) and its like are linguistically acceptable

mixed quotations, do we understand them? In order to understand (11),


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dont we need to understand its complement clause? But its complement

clause contains an expression we might not understand, namely, philtos-

opher. And isnt this particularly damaging for us since our chief com-

plaint against the alternative account (12) is that its reporter ends up

asserting an ill-formed meaningless English sentence?

Since we do claim we understand (11), there is a challenge here, but

that challenge is an objection to us only if our theory makes that challenge

particularlydifficult to meet. We dont think it does. According to the uni-

fied demonstrative account, the complement clause is no part, at least not

from a semantical point of view, of (11). To understand an utterance of

(11) is to understand the utterance of its main clause (the sentence con-

taining the demonstrative). Having understood an utterance tof that mainclause, one can go on to determine whether the demonstrated sub-utter-

ances samesays Nicolas utterance in order to determine the truth of t.

How we actually do that, i.e., how we determine whether two utterances

samesay each other, is a question that takes us well beyond the scope of

this paper.25 For our purposes, all we need to establish is that this is some-

thing we dofor utterances of sentences like (11). But anyone who agrees

that (an utterance of) (11) is linguistically acceptable and potentially true

must concede that this is something we do do.26

8. Conclusion

We have shown at least this much: there are interesting interactions among

the varieties of quotation. Semantic accounts of pure, direct, mixed, and

indirect quotation must acknowledge these interactions, i.e., must satisfy

C1C4. A myopically developed account of either indirect or pure quota-

tion is unlikely to be correct. Our joint account, as far as we know, is the

only one available satisfying all four constraints.

An important advantage of joining a demonstrative account of pure

and direct quotation with a demonstrative account of indirect quotation

is that this results in a unified account of opacity. Pure and indirect quo-

tation are paradigms of opaque contexts. From a methodological point of

view, it is both plausible and desirable that there be a common explana-tion of their opacity. This probably accounts for so many efforts in the

history of this subject to assimilate indirect quotation to direct quotation

(Carnap 1937, p. 248, 1947; Scheffler 1954; Quine 1956, 1960, secs. 30

25 See Cappelen and Lepore, forthcoming, for our views about what deter-mines the extension of samesaying.

26 Notice that if (11) is problematic, then (33)(37) should be equally prob-lematic for anyone who doesnt know the word oenophile.


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32; Sellars 1955, even Church 1954, given his metalinguistic solution to

Matess problem). Though the unified demonstrative account provides a

uniform account of quotation, it does not do so by assimilating either

form of quotation to the other and therefore does not fall prey, as did its

predecessors, to the standard Church arguments (Church 1950, p. 97).

Anyone who finds the account of quotation served in this paper unpal-

atable (perhaps because of the numerous objections to Davidsons

account of indirect quotation) needs to look for an alternative. But the sit-

uation here is unlike indirect quotation. There are no large number of

more or less acceptable competing accounts to choose from. In other

words, if C1C4 are acceptable constraints on a general account of

reported speech, then any account of indirect quotation is incomplete untilsupplemented with an account of pure and direct quotation.

Still, wed like to end with a challenge for those philosophers unalter-

ably convinced that Davidsons account of indirect quotation is wrong.

(1) Take your favorite theory of indirect quotation and show that it can (be

extended to) account for C1C4. (2)Eitherdevelop a theory of pure quo-

tation that combines with your favorite theory of indirect quotation to

yield a unified account of opacity orexplain why opacity doesnt admit

of a unified account. When youve completed tasks (1) and (2), compare

your results with the unified account with respect to simplicity and

elegance.27

Philosophy Department HERMAN CAPPELEN

Vassar College

Poughkeepsie, NY 12601

USA

[email protected]

Center for Cognitive Science ERNIE LEPORE

Rutgers University

New Brunswick, NJ 08903

USA

27 Earlier drafts of this paper were read at a conference honoring Donald

Davidson in Lublin, Poland, at Rutgers University, the University of Michigan,the University of CaliforniaBerkeley, the Graduate CenterCity University ofNew York, the Pacific American Philosophical Association, Vassar College, andthe Canadian Philosophical Association 1996 meetings. We would like to thankthese various audiences for their comments. Special thanks to Kent Bach, MarkCrimmins, Donald Davidson, Ray Elugardo, Jerry Fodor, Michael Hand, LouGoble, Kirk Ludwig, Robert May, Peter Pagin, Paul Pietroski, Mark Richard,Greg Ray, Michael Root, Gabe Segal, Mark Sainsbury, Robert Stainton, Ed Zalta,and an anonymous referee of this journal for comments on earlier drafts of thispaper.


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